'King of Blues' still reigns

'King of Blues' still reigns
December 2, 2009
By Nathan Collins
The Orion

n a few leisurely steps, the venerable “King of Blues” took Laxson Auditorium’s audience to wild applause.

The people who filled the packed house leapt up to get a glimpse of B.B. King as he settled onto his seat on stage and took up his guitar “Lucille,” signaling the start of an evening of storytelling, comedy and fret-smoking blues.

“I am 84 years old,” King said after taking his seat. He has been standing up playing for so long, it is about time he could sit down for a set, he said.

But that does not mean the thrill is gone.

Electric Circus front man Gary Dutra has been a King fan since hearing the album “Live in Cook County Jail,” and he does not think King could play a bad show, he said.

“He’s paid his dues — he can sit down and play and still rock it,” Dutra said.

King opened the show by ripping into a rendition of “I Need You So,” which he dedicated to all the lovers in the audience and the “ones who wish they were.” His powerful voice belted out the raspy blues, filling the auditorium with ringing, sweet tones.

“The whole night he’s playing, he’s talking to you,” said Dutra, who saw King perform when King last came to Laxson in 1992. “I mean, I swear to God, it’s like he’s having a conversation with you when he’s talking — he’s telling you these stories of his life. And you leave there feeling like, it’s a real personal show. It’s like he reached out and touched you.”

Lukas Nelson and the Promise of the Real warmed the crowd up for the “King of Blues,” opening with some hot Hendrix-style blues originals mixed in with standards by Lead Belly and Nelson’s father, country legend Willie Nelson.

“I like to go up and say ‘hi’ to him and pay my respects and listen to his stories and all that,” Lukas Nelson said about King. “He’s a really humble guy and you can learn a lot from an 84-year-old genius like that.”

Though King spent much of the evening playing his classics, he spent just as much time telling stories about his long, prolific life between, and sometimes even in the middle of, playing. King told one story about the first time he had a fight with his first wife while working on a cotton plantation in Mississippi. Before rolling like a blues train into a heart-rending rendition of “It’s My Own Fault,” he explained how “women are angels” and can do anything better than a man.

King recognizes he is getting older, but he showed the crowd at Laxson he is unchanged with his up-beat re-invention of the old Blind Lemon Jefferson standard “See That My Grave is Kept Clean.” If he does get re-incarnated, King wants to come back as a horse, he said.

“Then I can ride all the pretty girls around,” King said.

At one point he asked for the house lights to be turned up so he could see the audience, while busting out a rendition of “You Are My Sunshine,” which he dedicated to all the ladies in the audience, asking them to give their man, or “person,” a kiss all in good fun.

“You hope you’re doing it at 84 — anything,” said Chico Performances director Dan DeWayne, who helped book King at Laxson.

Being a huge fan of Willie Nelson, it’s long been a staple of King’s show to cover one of his tunes. Willie Nelson was awe-struck one day when he saw King covering a song of his at a club.

“He told me he got weak in the knees,” Lukas Nelson said with a laugh. “He couldn’t play the song anymore. He barely made it through," he said.

But there were not any weak-kneed renditions at Laxson. After King closed the musical journey through his life with a fret-sizzling rendition of “The Thrill is Gone,” he kindly asked if, time permitting, he could come back.

“I hope I didn’t bore you too much,” King said. “Thanks for being so good to us.”

Then he put on his hat and coat, waving goodbye with a big grin as he stepped off the stage with the band blaring behind him and his bandleader chanting “The King of Blues.”

When King passes off the world-stage, blues music will have lost one its greatest players.

“This is the best show ever, I mean seriously, it’s a lost art form,” Dutra said. “When he dies, it’ll be gone with him.”